When Cities Fall
by Shyrstyne
Summary: TF:Animated. If a building falls on a bot in battle, is there anyone there to help him? Ironhide is beginning to realize just what goes on in war.


He cursed as the explosion rolled across him, sending him sprawling to the side

Chances are high that everything written here will be completely refuted in some future episode of Animated, but it was an interesting thought, and I felt like writing. There's no real point to this one. At least not beyond my own simple conjecture. You'll notice that a lot of back-story hasn't changed much from the original. That is only _partially_ due to my not thinking of something new. Were it not for the ten-second blurb at the beginning of "Mission Accomplished", I probably wouldn't have really considered it.

**When Cities Fall**

_If a building falls on a bot in battle, will there be anyone there to help him?_

He cursed as the explosion rolled across him, sending him sprawling to the side. He had not had his protective layer active, but it seemed the damage was mostly minor. A little scorched and dented, but the only major loss was notably his comm., which fizzled and sparked in a most unpromising fashion. He'd gotten the main message through at least. The Decepticons were retaliating, and the Autobots weren't prepared.

Ironhide cursed again as he stood and tried to find himself some decent cover. The city was a loss. The spacebridge was all but unsalvageable. They only continued to fight for whatever poor spark may still be trapped here. Few had been evacuated before the bridge had fallen, and now a surprising amount of rebel 'Cons were mowing them down. It made him sick, but moreover it made him mad. And over that he was feeling the wheeling edges of panic. This wasn't going well. In fact, at this point he would be extremely happy just to get out of this alive.

But there was no way out.

The Space Bridge was gone, and there weren't enough ships to get everyone out- even if that was a safe alternative, and even if there wasn't anything left to fight for. And there was. The city was nearly completely destroyed, but he hoped yet that somebody –_anybody-_ had survived.

So this was war.

A breem. A vorn. A nanosecond. It didn't matter. The battle was over, and it was starting to seem like picking up the pieces was even harder than watching them fall apart. Ironhide sat down heavily on what must have once been a wall and tried to recollect himself. It was hard. There weren't any civilian survivors. None. _Nothing._ Anybot that had survived had fled through the spacebridge before it collapsed. The Autobots had sustained both heavy damages and casualties. It was awful, and all of a sudden he had a newfound respect for the old war-bots who always seemed so distant.

An Autobot walked past, looking every bit as weary as he felt, and stood back up. Any bot that had survived this mess certainly wasn't going to benefit from him sitting around.

Time seemed to come to an absolute standstill. Another fallen building, another grayed out body, another lost hope. Ironhide trudged alongside the debris, keeping every sensor peeled for just the slightest hint…

"…on't wanna go, don't wanna go offline, were are the others? Gone. No… No, no, nono.. They can't be gone. Cant be can't be… Oooh, I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't I really don't, Oh _Primus_…"

The quick, garbled mumbling became apparent to his audio's about the same time his other sensors picked up on the errant spark. Ironhide's own spark lifted, and he almost ran to the heap of a former building. Sifting for only a moment, Ironhide picked up a large metal slab and threw it to the side, revealing the bot underneath. The frantic muttering stopped, and the little bot looked up at him with something akin to panic.

"No! No! Please don't kill me, we didn't do anything, we were just merchants, just like everybot else, oh please don't, please don't please don't-" Ironhide crouched, and tried to make himself as non-threatening as possible.

"Easy there, little fella. I'm an Autobot. We ain't gonna hurt ya." The little bot looked at him with wide optics, but seemed to calm, and Ironhide took stock of the situation.

The little bot was trapped; the lower half of him pinned beneath a fallen column, but otherwise only scorched and dented. The bot was small, almost tiny by Ironhide's estimation. Built for quick and efficient movement by the looks of it, though probably not to the extent of a customization like Blurr. Ironhide took stock of the fallen pillar. He wouldn't be able to move it by himself. He comm.-ed for someone to help, announcing he'd found a survivor. He wanted to be happy that they'd saved something at least, but he couldn't at all dredge up the emotion when he looked down into the little Bot's terror stricken faceplates.

"What's your name kid?"

The little bot hesitated only a moment before answering.

"B.. Bluestreak, sir."

'_Funny,_' Thought Ironhide. '_He doesn't a spot of blue on him._'


End file.
